You beat me to it.

It took me a while to figure out that when our friends across the pond are talking about "getting pissed", that they're not actually angry about anything.

I'm still not quite sure about "how's your father".

Well, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are separate languages rather than dialects. They're related, yes, but nowhere near as close to being identical as the different variants of English are.
It does. Here's the first place it comes up in the book, which, by the way, is Terry Pratchett's Thud!:

"The important thing is not to shout at this point, Vimes told himself. Do not... what do they call it... go spare? Treat this as a learning exercise. Find out why the world is not as you thought it was. Assemble the facts, digest the information, consider the implications. Then go spare. But with precision."

As you can see, the context pretty much spells it out.
Hehe, admittedly, that sounds awfully familiar :-D

The Acid House was subtitled when I saw it. In all fairness though, I wouldn't have been able to decipher the dialogue otherwise. Distributors assume audiences are—by and large—incapable and the more difficult (or "less accessible") the experience is, the smaller the audience becomes. K.I.S,S.

It's really common (though the reverse is less so) it's funny to get american versions of books you know and love where people are suddenly walking along sidewalks or using the subway (in london of all places) instead of the tube... The best one I've seen is the Harry Potter books where even the names were changed (and they get different versions of the films with the changes included!)

I don't know if I'd call it dumbing down, but I agree with your sentiment that it shouldn't be changed. To me, it loses some of it's 'flavor' and actually sometimes throws me right out of the story when I see something Americanized.

Yeah, like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. WTF was that? The Philosopher's stone is a well-known reference in legend/literature. Where the hell did they dredge up a sorcerer's stone?

I tend to prefer the British English spelling for many words, but there are quite a few phrases I've not heard.

I've noticed that a lot of "Irish" books tend to include a glossary for commonly used but not necessarily well-known phrases.

This is the first time I've seen "to go spare" too.

I've never seen/heard it either. But if I read it in context, I'm pretty sure I'd be able to figure out what it meant. And I'd rather see that than a 'translated' version of it. And I'm with you on the spelling as well (even though I normally default to American spelling on many words. Force of habit after becoming fed up with so many forum nazis trying to correct my spelling on various other forums over the years).

See for yourself. I posted the context here.

On this one I really wouldn't consider it dumbing down, more like clarification. Of course there are going to be some colloquialisms I'm not going to understand because I'm not British. Likewise, there are phrases that I wouldn't expect someone who is British to know. So changing around a few phrases I don't mind. Changing something out of an assumption that I would be scared off by the unfamiliar (re: Philosopher's Stone), that I consider dumbing down.

Personally, I do prefer the original version of a story with the local colloquialisms if possible, but little changes in the jargon I don't mind too much.

It was quite fun reading through "Trainspotting" :-)

Hey, don't feel so badly. I've seen them subtitle people from my home state. So there! :D

I didn't know the phrase "to go spare" but to change it would lose the flavor as has been said. I've had to look up phrases before because the book was older and that particular phrase fell out of popularity. It wouldn't be the same to use modern phrasing.

Heck, if you look at some of the language from the more remote corners of my home state, you'd probably need a translator, too. (I might, too!)

Not meaning to offend anyone, but I get the impression that the US is a lot more insular than a lot of other countries. I mean this in the sense that the awareness of other cultures is lower.

To use your example, I'm perfectly aware of the phrase "to go postal" despite not using it myself and although I don't know anyone who uses it, I think most people I know would recognise it.

I think it's to do with media, we import a lot more American media than the US does British media. Because we import plenty of American stuff, we tend to understand most of it. I think British media imported into the US tends to be a bit more localised, because of (and causing) the lower understanding.

Pshaw. Real men don't use aluminum OR aluminium, they go old school and just call it alumium.